Young Pitchers Can Learn From Santana's Success
Johan Santana has won 17 straight games since the last time he was beaten. He strikes out double-digit batters more often than the Twins suffer fluke injuries. He's known around the league as one of the best pitchers in the game, and was honored with the Cy Young award as a result. And the biggest thing young pitchers can learn from him is the most effective way he strikes out opposing batters: with the change-up.
Today's youngsters (and indeed, young players for many years) see the big leaguers breaking off nasty curveballs and sliders and the kids want to do that too. But they don't understand the long-term damage they're doing to their arms.
I'd be lying if I said I knew the percentage of players who have arm surgery, but I can tell you this: every player has arm problems. The lucky ones just have soreness once in a while, but a huge percentage of players either have a nagging injury that effects their velocity (like the tendonitis I fought over the past two summers) or worse, surgery.
Elbow and shoulder surgery have become so commonplace that ball players don't even think much of it anymore. Yes, players can come back from surgery, but ruining your arm with the assumption that a doctor will be able to fix it isn't the best way to go about things. And a lot of damage can be done to a young arm throwing curveballs.
Curveballs, sliders, slurves and any other variations of a breaking ball are tough on an arm--any arm. The motion is unnatural and harmful. It is a sharp snapping at release. Either that, or the pitch won't break sharply enough.
When I was young, 16 was thought to be the age that players could safely start throwing breaking balls. I would say that should be the very youngest. It isn't worth risking injury or loss of velocity. Especially when you consider the way many big league pitchers are drafted.
Scouts today draft on tools, potential and for pitchers, velocity. They are much more interested in a guy who can throw a 90-mile-per-hour fastball than someone with a big breaking ball. So kids should develop their arm strength rather than their slider. They should play long-toss rather than throw split-finger fastballs.
Obviously a pitcher will benefit from an effective off-speed pitch (although at any level, control gives pitchers a leg up on the competition). The answer? Look no further than Johan Santana and his best strikeout pitch: the change-up.
A good change-up will ruin the hitter's timing, it will move (down and in from a righty to a righty) and most importantly for young players, it won't cause arm problems.
The only downfall to the change-up is that it can be hard to control. It takes a lot of practice since the ball is placed back in the palm rather than out in the fingers. But when perfected and kept low in the zone, the change-up is the ultimate pitch for little leaguers. And they should keep it in their repertoire for life.
And keep their arm in the process.
Today's youngsters (and indeed, young players for many years) see the big leaguers breaking off nasty curveballs and sliders and the kids want to do that too. But they don't understand the long-term damage they're doing to their arms.
I'd be lying if I said I knew the percentage of players who have arm surgery, but I can tell you this: every player has arm problems. The lucky ones just have soreness once in a while, but a huge percentage of players either have a nagging injury that effects their velocity (like the tendonitis I fought over the past two summers) or worse, surgery.
Elbow and shoulder surgery have become so commonplace that ball players don't even think much of it anymore. Yes, players can come back from surgery, but ruining your arm with the assumption that a doctor will be able to fix it isn't the best way to go about things. And a lot of damage can be done to a young arm throwing curveballs.
Curveballs, sliders, slurves and any other variations of a breaking ball are tough on an arm--any arm. The motion is unnatural and harmful. It is a sharp snapping at release. Either that, or the pitch won't break sharply enough.
When I was young, 16 was thought to be the age that players could safely start throwing breaking balls. I would say that should be the very youngest. It isn't worth risking injury or loss of velocity. Especially when you consider the way many big league pitchers are drafted.
Scouts today draft on tools, potential and for pitchers, velocity. They are much more interested in a guy who can throw a 90-mile-per-hour fastball than someone with a big breaking ball. So kids should develop their arm strength rather than their slider. They should play long-toss rather than throw split-finger fastballs.
Obviously a pitcher will benefit from an effective off-speed pitch (although at any level, control gives pitchers a leg up on the competition). The answer? Look no further than Johan Santana and his best strikeout pitch: the change-up.
A good change-up will ruin the hitter's timing, it will move (down and in from a righty to a righty) and most importantly for young players, it won't cause arm problems.
The only downfall to the change-up is that it can be hard to control. It takes a lot of practice since the ball is placed back in the palm rather than out in the fingers. But when perfected and kept low in the zone, the change-up is the ultimate pitch for little leaguers. And they should keep it in their repertoire for life.
And keep their arm in the process.
posted by Joe Siple | 2:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home